Social networking has become an increasingly popular presence on the Internet. Social network services allow users to easily connect with friends, family members, and other users in order to share, among other things, comments regarding activities, interests, and other thoughts. As social networking has continued to grow, companies have recognized value in the technology. For instance, companies have found that social networking provides a great tool for managing their brand and driving consumers to their own web sites or to otherwise purchase their products or services.
To assist companies in their social networking efforts, some social analysis tools, such as the ADOBE SOCIAL tool, have been developed that provide mechanisms for companies to collect information regarding what consumers are saying and manage responses to consumers' social networking messages. Using such social analysis tools, companies can target consumers with posts promoting their products and services. While this presents a powerful way to reach consumers, it has proven difficult to effectively identify which consumers to target, when to target each consumer, and what message to send to each consumer.
Some social analysis tools also allow companies to analyze competitors' webpages. For instance, companies may be able to view how the FACEBOOK webpages of their competitors compare to their own FACEBOOK webpages. This may provide several metrics, such as total page likes, new page likes, post engagements, new posts, and other information during some specified timeframe. While this information is useful to companies, the information is often basic, and companies are limited in what they can do with the information.